Dicrossus filamentosus

[illumnae]

I've managed to take a very lousy picture of my D. filamentosus "Barcelos" from Biotope's latest shipment. He's not been willing to flare for the camera, so I'm unable to catch him in his full glory. He has a patterned red anal fin, a fully red dorsal with irridiscent blue highlights and an irridiscent blue tail with red highlights. Still conditioning him with NLS (the batch started taking NLS a few days after I took them home) and hopefully his red lateral band will be more prominent in the days to come.

[jacian]

Don't mind if I hijack your thread. Below is my Dicrossus filamentosus bought back from Taiwan. Too bad I lost most of them due to my bad handling.

The male, already rest in peace on the second day.


Below I think should be a female, doing well in my tank now and feeding on NLS.

[illumnae]

your 2nd fish actually looks like a male to me instead of a female

as for the "hijack", i'm not sure if your D. filamentosus are of the Barcelos variant, but no worries about it. We can all share and trade tips/pictures about keeping D. filamentosus in general. More information shared is always better than less after all, and no point having 2 threads about the same species in quick succession of each other. Perhaps a mod could be kind enough to remove the "Barcelos" tag from the thread title and we could move on with a generic discussion about this species?

[jacian]

How do you sex the Dicrossus filamentosus? For me, I look at the tail, the male has lyre-tails， also, I look at the ventral fin and anal fin, female will have orange/red colour while the male is clear. Thus, I tthought I have a female in the second picture.

[illumnae]

The lyre-tails are one of the last features to develop in a male, and the "sneaker male" syndrome might kick in to suppress development of that. Whilst I was reading up on sexing them, these were what I concluded, and were consistent with my finding on the few pieces I obtained:

1. shape of body. males tend to be more elongated proportionately, while females are stouter and shorter.

2. Irridiscent blue lateral line. Usually absent in females

3. Red ventral fins. The ventrals in females that have bred before are pure red without a blue irridiscent edging. All my males have, to some degree, red on their ventrals, but the males all have blue edges on them. my sole female has a pure red pair of ventrals. It's also important to note that females will only have red ventrals after they've bred at least once. Young virgin females will show clear ventrals.

4. Anal fin. All my 5 pieces show red on their anal fin. In fact, my males show more red than the females

5. Another point on the tail, my female shows some red on the tail, but no patterning and no irridiscent blue like with the male. I'm not sure if this is a conclusive method to sex them, just an observation on my part.

In your picture, I notice that there is a blue edge on the ventral as well as the blue irridiscent lateral line, that's why I thought it's a male

[doubleace]

Yoz Yixiang.. So thats the piece you mention that look very nice... Indeed!!

[illumnae]

Thanks Andy I'll try and get a picture of him in his full glory, though I'm not sure when I'll succeed doing that. He looks even nicer when flaring

[Samuel2618]

Indeed It is definitely much nicer than those sold at C328 or seaviews now.. And the plus point.. It is dirt cheap as compared to those sold in the market recently.. No wonder all kenna sapu.. Haha.. In Singapore.. Good things never wait for you..

[jacian]

Thanks for sharing the pointers in sexing them. I will try to take more photos so as we can discuss further in sexing them.

[leeruisheng]

Dicrossus spp. Some nice photos of the Dicrossus filamentosus.
http://shop.ulmer.de/artikel.dll/sh_114-115_MzAwODE.PDF

But my favourite of the whole lot is the Dicrossus maculatus

[illumnae]

my preference is still for D. filamentosus because of the lyretail I don't find round tails attractive (even in apistos). However, I must admit that the extreme red face shown in some of the specimens in your link are very pretty. Pity that feature isn't often found in the already rare shipments of D. maculatus

[illumnae]

They are afraid of the camera but not my hand. Guess no flaring shot today

[genes]

These guys are very peaceful fishes. I kept a couple before, tried mirror too, but they do not flare.

[doubleace]

Yixiang, hope it flare for you one day and show us this wonderful piece...

[Zenislev]

Really nice pieces. Too bad i dont have a chance to get a pair before you guys sapu all.

[trident]

yixiang,
I see your photography has improve since the last time.
Nice piece you got there, pity it's not my cup of tea.
You have fun OK?

[illumnae]

These guys are very peaceful fishes. I kept a couple before, tried mirror too, but they do not flare.

I thought they were peaceful too, but this batch seems to buck the trend. the males were constantly flaring at each other actually, but they run when they see the camera. when i put my face in front or wave my hand in front they keep flaring.

i've actually caught 2 males fighting for dominance...locking jaws and "wrestling" for a second or 2

[Gecko]

He has a patterned red anal fin, a fully red dorsal with irridiscent blue highlights and an irridiscent blue tail with red highlights. .

Hi illumnae

My order of (supposedly wild caught) males came in today and looks very similar to the one in your picture, as well as your description. Especially that red line in the "cheek" right under the eye. I can't confirm the origin, they are indeed very territorial and seems big (TL : 2" including lyre tail extension). The flashes of irridiscent blue and red is a delightful addition after having the black and white females for a while....

[illumnae]

Can you share where you got the order from? I may want to bring more females in to form a harem.

I can see a distinct difference between the bred ones available locally and the wild ones I've got, both male and female. The bred ones are definitely more washed out in colour, and even my female isn't merely black and white like we're accustomed to seeing. The female I have sports red ventrals and anal fins as well as some very faint red/blue tinges in the tail/dorsal, though definitely not to the same extent as the male. I also see 4 different tones on the body of the female:

1. White belly
2. Black lateral stripe (the middle black dots sometimes merge to form a single thick black line)
3. light grey area above the black lateral stripe
4. dark grey area where the 2nd band of "checkers" is, just below the dorsal

[Gecko]

There is this guy who imports wild caught catfish (including plecos and cories) and drive a van to deliver to C328, can order from auntie. Problem is the females C328 gets are mostly F1s(as what you decribed above), so have to specify wildcaught. This batch of 10 I got are all males, and they put even the most colorful candidi to shame.